When Aging Spells Go Awry
by LadyArinn
Summary: A daughter of Hecate's aging spell accidentally hits the wrong person. Nico's pissed, Will's an idiot who manages to say pretty much all of the wrong things, and somehow they manage to do okay in the end.


Longest on for this pairing so far! This is just a really stupid idea that I had and grew rather fond of. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Will was in the arena, busy bandaging the hand of a sniffling young son of Aphrodite. The boy had tried to impress a daughter of Athena by picking up a sword for the first time but had ended up acting like a fool instead and had accidentally sliced open his palm. The son of Apollo was talking happily to the boy about how he'd never really been all that good with a sword either, but maybe the boy should give it another try with someone knowledgeable telling him what to do. After all, if everyone gave up at the first try, then everything would be a lot worse.

He wasn't really the best at adages, but the really important thing was that he was trying.

Connor Stoll ran into the arena and after a moment of searching started immediately towards the son of Apollo, and since Will didn't see any blood his focus remained on the child in front of him.

"I don't care what you did this time, I'm not going to make it go away so you don't have to face Chiron. Not again, at least." Will tells him mildly, finishing up on the now curiously watching boy.

"No," Connor shakes his head, and something in his tone has Will pausing and looking at him, "No, it's not our fault this time. It's… Something happened to Nico." And he doesn't sound panicked, which is a good sign because it means that it's nothing so bad that there is any reason to panic. Really, he just sounds cautious, like he doesn't know how Will would react. And that's strange, because Will's fine. Completely fine. It's just… His chest is a bit tight and he feels a bit sick as well as a little shaky on his feet once he gets up, and he can't quite remember how to breathe properly.

But other than that? Other than that he's fine.

He doesn't really see anything on his hurry to the Big House, it all sort of bleeds together into a blur because all he can focus on is that someone he cares about is hurt and he should be helping him but he _isn't_. They run, which makes the trek to the Big House shorter, but it's still too long and Will doesn't even pause before racing into and through the building and bursting into the infirmary.

He stands there for just a moment, panting, and takes everything in.

Travis was there with Lou Ellen, who was staring down at a sobbing younger girl while looking both amused and exasperated, along with Jason and Chiron and one of his sisters. They were all surrounding the farthest bed, curtains pulled around to keep Nico—he knew Nico was the one on the bed, he _knew _it—from his sight, and he must make some sound because everyone looks up at him all at once.

"Will," Chiron sighs, "I see Connor managed to get you."

"Is he… Is Nico okay? Is there anything I can do?" His breathing is ragged and he has no idea what could have happened to his boyfriend or how or when because there was nothing special about today. Today Nico was just supposed do some early morning training with Jason and then hang out with him through lunch, do whatever he wanted until dinner and then they'd meet up and have some time together. Nothing new, nothing special, nothing that could have gone wrong. So what had happened?

"Yes, about that," Chiron starts, only to be cut off by the sobbing girl who he noticed was a daughter of Hecate if her bright and tear filled eyes were any indication.

"I didn't mean to," She wails, and knowing that she'd been the reason for whatever was going on should be enough to make him angry at her, but it isn't because she doesn't even look ten. She does look pitiful, though. "I just wanted him to notice me and I-I thought that i-if I was a bit older then…then," She breaks down into sobs again, and Lou Ellen sits down to comfort her.

"What she meant by that," Jason sighs, "Is that Rene developed a bit of a crush on Travis, and so to do something about it she tried to age herself with magic. It… It didn't really work out how she had wanted, though."

"What happened?" Will manages to ask, eyes darting from who he was talking with to the curtain that hid Nico and whatever had happened to him.

"The spell went a little out of control since she's too young to be doing anything like this and it hit Nico, who was walking by." Lou Ellen sighs, rubbing soothing circles into her sister's back.

"Connor, Jason and me carried him here because he was knocked unconscious when the spell hit him and as soon as we set him down he stared shaking like he was having a seizure or something." Travis says nervously, looking at the curtain with anxious concern. "It didn't really look good."

"He calmed down though," His sister Aline tells him gently. "I couldn't find anything other than a fever and an elevated heart rate wrong with him,"

A low groan comes from behind the curtain, and nothing could have stopped Will from moving quickly past everyone and yanking the curtain aside.

He was braced for anything. Burns, deformations, even animal features. He was prepared and… He was not prepared for what he found at all.

"This is new," Aline murmurs behind him and he can only nod dumbly because it was… it was… It was _something_, that was for certain.

He loved Nico and knew pretty much everything he thought there was to know about certain parts of him. His body, for instance. Thin shoulders and slim limbs, skin a pale olive that was finally starting to darken back to his natural tone since he had been getting into the habit of actually going out into the sun. Dark hair that had just the slightest curl to it and dark eyes that had stubbornly retained the bruising half-circles beneath, though that weren't as pronounced as they had been in years past. He wasn't a gaunt skeleton with skin anymore, but he hadn't yet managed to get enough weight on to make him very big. The bumps of his spine were prominent when he curled in on himself, shoulder blades jutting out defensively, and when he breathed in deeply you could see his ribs. But he had been slowly, ever so slowly, eating more and more gradually, so Will knew that one day he might put on just enough weight to make him look fully healthy.

He hadn't quite expected it to be today, and he hadn't expected the stubble or the hair or the face or _anything_. There could have been no expectation of this.

Nico's eyes slowly slid open, and everyone in the room jumped when he looked at them.

"Will? Jason? What?" Nico's eyebrows furrow as he blearily looks up at them, and Will certainly hadn't been expecting that voice, "What's everyone doing here?"

Will's training kicks in and he moves in a bit closer, "Nico, you're in the infirmary. Do you remember anything?" He takes his boyfriend's now slightly wider wrist—oh Gods, his _hands_—and takes his pulse, counting the beats and noting that while it was racing it was also starting to slow down.

"Um, I don't know. Lights? I… I've got a headache." He mutters, and Will has to shove down his hysterical laughter because a headache was really the least of his worries.

"Why are you all looking at me like that? What happened? Am I alright?" Nico lifted his hand up without really seeming to realize it and brought it to his chest, looking for wounds, and then to his face where he finds stubble that certainly hadn't been there before. His eyes widen almost comically and he sits up, both hands rubbing at his face. As he sits up his hair, now shoulder length and _gorgeous_, falls forward, and he grabs at it with clumsy hands to bring it up to see better and then he's looking at his hands and Will can see the panic starting to creep up.

"How long have I been out?" He croaks, and from the corner of his eye Will sees one of the Stolls walking away.

"Not even half an hour." Jason manages, watching Nico with stunned rapture.

"Then what…?"

"Aging spell."

Nico looks down at his now larger—but still long fingered and slender, Will notes—hands, and then at the rest of his longer, slightly meatier body.

"My clothes don't fit anymore," He whispers almost to himself numbly, and Will can't hold back the bark of shocked laughter that escapes him.

"Nope." He manages, trying hard to keep the rest of his panicked giggles to himself.

Nico is… His hair is longer and _he's _longer and… Will had never thought about Nico grown up or ever looking different than the nearly sixteen year old did—or had.

He was still slim, but most of what had always made Will see him as delicate was gone. His shoulders were a bit studier, his arms a bit thicker, his face grown into and the sharp edges looking dashing instead of breakable. His eyes, which had always looked so unbelievably big, fit into his face and there weren't any shadows beneath them, and now Will finally understood what Nico had meant about when he had mentioned his skin was actually supposed to naturally be darker.

He was gorgeous, and when Will's panic died down he was sure that he was going to enjoy it.

Travis, who had apparently been the one to leave, walked back into the infirmary and straight to Nico, handing him the mirror he had somehow procured without a word. Nico took it in much the same fashion, and stared at his reflection with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

"Fuck." He breathed, unable to take his eyes away from his reflection.

"Language." Chiron protested in what was most likely a knee jerk reaction, voice slightly weak as he watched Nico with the same wide eyed shock as everyone else. Nico shifted his gaze from the mirror and over to the centaur, shooting him a frustrated glare.

"My language is not the problem here!" He nearly shouts, his voice bordering on hysteric.

"Hey now, let's calm down a bit." Lou Ellen interjects before something bad could be said or done, "There isn't any need to panic." Everyone stares at her, obviously questioning her intelligence, and she bristles, "There isn't! Rene is too young to have done this properly," A cry of protest came from the younger girl, "Or permanently. All we have to do is reverse it or let the spell run its course and go away. And you'd better not look at me like I'm stupid again, else I'll make your faces stick that way." She threatens.

"No you won't," Chiron tells her with a weary sigh, "And how long will it take for you to find a way to reverse it or let it run its course?"

"To reverse it will take a few days since we'll need to figure out how the spell went wrong initially and since it happened to someone different than what it had been made for. I don't know how long it will take for it to run its course, maybe a few hours or maybe a few weeks. It wasn't really done in a way that would let me be sure."

"So I'm going to be stuck like this for a few days?" Nico asks, his voice still filled with shock though now it was joined by aggravation and a bit of petulance.

"You're going to be stuck like this for _years_ in about a decade. You can suck it up for less than a week." Lou Ellen snarks back, obviously done with all of them. Nico huffs and is obviously about to say something, but before he can Will puts his hand on his now firmer shoulder.

"Hey, it won't be that bad. You'll get back to yourself in no time." He tells him, squeezing his shoulder in comfort. Nico stiffens and turns his glare on to his boyfriend, but after a moment of holding the blonde's gaze his glare falters and then relaxes. He sighs, and looks away.

"Alright." Nico muttered, leaning his head against Will's arm just the slightest bit, eyes flicking back over to Will and making the boy blush in a way that he hadn't in a _long_ time, his entire face flushing and body heating up in a way that he'd have to cut off soon or else he'd end up embarrassing himself. "But I don't want anyone else knowing about this." He warns.

"Of course Nico," Jason says with a smile, "We won't do anything you don't want."

Nico offers his friend a half smile, but the nice moment is all too soon interrupted.

"Ah…" Lou Ellen starts, looking around the infirmary, "Where did the Stolls go?"

* * *

By the time they found Travis and Connor they'd already told nearly the entire camp, an incredible feat if you considered that they'd had less than twenty minute to get the story circulating. They told Nico about his secret transformation becoming a not-so-secret transformation, and his anger became a palpable thing. Just before dinner that night Chiron told Nico that he was allowed to stay in the infirmary or go back to his cabin instead of dealing with the entire camp, but Nico shook his head.

"No reason to, now that the entire camp knows." He growled, and with his deeper voice that threatening tone of his that Will had never really found very threatening actually kind of _worked_. It also made Will start to blush again, but that wasn't something he was really willing to admit.

After procuring Nico some better fitting clothes they made their way to the Mess, and Will had to quicken from his usual pace to stay beside Nico with his now lengthened legs—oh Gods, those _legs_. He could almost swear that somebody was trying to kill him because there was no way those legs had gotten on to his boyfriend with anything other than devious intent. They were too perfect for it to be anything else. Forcing his eyes forward and strictly not allowing them to wander, Will began repeating a mantra in his head in the hopes that he would gain a bit of control over himself.

_Do not embarrass yourself, do not molest Nico. Do not embarrass yourself, do not molest Nico._

As soon as they arrived at the Mess all conversation stopped and everyone blatantly stared. It was so obvious that even Will became irritated, and a glance to the side at Nico—getting a small shock when he didn't have to look as far down as he usually did—showed that Nico wasn't just annoyed or upset. He was utterly _furious._

This was going to end badly, and Will was going to be more concerned about it as soon as he could tear himself away from his thoughts about how pretty Nico's hair was all long and floaty around his face and looking so soft that he just wanted to run his fingers through it for forever.

He really needed to stop acting like he was an eleven year old who had just gotten his first really big crush on the older boy at camp. He'd been dating Nico for two years and he was acting absolutely ridiculous.

Will went with Nico to the table he shared with Jason whenever the other blonde was at camp, and when Nico tried to swing his leg over the bench to sit down and ended up practically kicking over the entire thing with his newly lengthened—and oh so incredible—legs, Will couldn't hold back himself any longer.

He collapsed into his seat in a pile of hysterical giggles, burying his face into his arms and trying so hard to stop, which only seemed to make everything worse. After a minute or so of this he sat back up with a bit more control over himself, though his shoulders were still shaking and his face was streaked with the remnants of the few tears that had escaped.

"I-I'm sorry," He choked out, "I-I'm t-trying to st-top."

"What is _wrong _with you?" Nico hissed out, oh so very angry but concerned, which was nice and sweet and sometimes he was a really good boyfriend.

And, sometimes, Will was not.

"What's wrong with _me_?" Will manages, another burst of hysterical giggles briefly breaking free, "_Me?_ I mean, have you… Look at you! You're just… And I'm… I really _can't_." Again with the giggling, "I just _can't _with all of this." He tells him, gesturing at all of his boyfriend in a gesture that he definitely didn't think through what so ever.

Nico's eyes were burning as an angry flush rises up on his cheeks, and without a word he shoves away from the table and storms away. Nearly the entire camp watches as he leaves, having eagerly and silently observed the whole thing as if it had all happened for their enjoyment. Will's eye's followed his now absolutely livid boyfriend as he strode away, and he couldn't help the groan he let out.

"Oh my _Gods,_" He practically whimpered, head falling forward to thud onto the table, "Did you _see_ his _ass_?" He turned his head slightly to look over at a very disapproving Jason.

He looked a mixture of shock and distaste at the question. "No. I don't make a hobby of looking at Nico's ass."

"You should," Will moaned, turning his head back so that his face was smushed into the wood of the table, "It's a really great ass even without the magic."

"Will," Jason starts testily, "You shouldn't have said what you said to Nico."

Well he didn't have to say it like _that_. Will knew what he had said had been awful and insensitive and that Nico hadn't understood, and the guilt of it was already stifling even with his hysteria keeping most of the weight off of him. Jason didn't have to use that judgmental tone of his that he always had when it came to people wrongly upsetting Nico, because Will knew how terrible he'd messed up.

He sat back up and took a deep breath before releasing it and trying his best to calm down and gain a bit more control over himself. He managed to succeed in this, the downside of which being that as soon as he did the guilt that filled him was a horrible thing.

He shoved away from the table and left the mess to go after his errant and aged boyfriend and apologize until he was blue in the face.

It took nearly half an hour to find him because while the Hades cabin seemed the place he would go it was too obvious and he would have been found too easily, so Nico had to have gone somewhere he hoped that no one would find him. This place turned out to be at the edge of the strawberry fields which Will only went to because there was nowhere else to look.

"Found you." Will sighed as he dropped to the ground beside him, feeling even worse when Nico leaned away just the slightest bit.

"Okay, so I'm really _really _sorry. Like, I know I screwed up majorly and you really shouldn't just forgive me even if I hoped that you would because I was awful and terrible and I don't really know why I said what I said. It was like I opened my mouth and stupid stuff just kind of poured out. It's just…" He sighed and looked over at that stoic face with its clenched jaw and angry eyes, "You make me so nervous like this." That has Nico jerking and whipping his head around to finally look at him.

"Because you're yourself, but you look different. Like, a hot older different that I never thought about before but that totally makes sense because _of course _you would literally be the hottest person ever when you get older."

"So you like this version of me than the other me?" Nico bit out defensively, and Will hurried to shake his head and assure him that that wasn't what all of this was.

"No it's like… Sometimes you have something for so long that you kind of take it for granted, right? Well, I think that that's what this is. Like, we've been together for two years now and that's a pretty long time. So we—or at least _I_—got comfortable, and then you changing threw me out of that comfort zone and made me notice things. It makes everything fell new and it makes me feel like a fool, and it just reminds me of how much I like you. And all of these changes are great and all, and they make me feel like a fool stumbling over my own tongue while it hangs out of my mouth, but the more I look at you and see all these great things the more I want _my_ Nico back. This Nico is future Jason's Nico, but my Nico is skinny and short and has these knobby elbows that I get hit with all the time and they're so sharp that they actually hurt even though I pretend to be strong." Reaching over Will grabbed Nico's arm and pulled it up a bit, "Now look at those elbows. Not knobby or sharp or anything, really. Just elbows. _Dry _elbows, so future you should really start using lotion."

"Shut up." Nico huffs as he pulls his arm away, but he does it fondly so Will knows that they'll be okay.

"So yeah, this you had me acting a bit crazy and hysterical, but all I want is _you_. Just you." Will tells him, and slides across the distance separating them in what he hopes is a smooth and unnoticed move. The look Nico gives him tells him it wasn't, but he doesn't move or shove him away, so Will takes that as a good sign.

"So does that mean that the Will in the future want past me more than this me?" He asks, and it takes Will a moment to puzzle through the wording. Really, their situation was just so _bizarre. _

"Nope. He'll want his Nico. Whatever you is the one that is mine is the one I'll always want. Future Will had time to get used to future Nico's not knobby and dry elbows, and so he loves them. I just need the time to get used to them as we get older, but for now you'd better keep those things away from me."

"You're ridiculous. I don't even think that that made sense." Nico huffed, rolling his eyes, and Will knows that he's forgiven.

They end up laying on their backs together staring up at the sky saying very little, and Will thinks that it's nearly perfect. Nearly so because he realizes as they stretch out side by side that if he were to turn on his side for a nice and cozy cuddle, they wouldn't fit together like they always had. There would have to be adjustments and it would be so different than usual and… Sure, there was something a bit thrilling about Nico looking different and older and new, but he wasn't _his _Nico who he could cuddle so easily and without a single thought. He wanted that back.

So he was going to enjoy having Nico looking like he was, but he wasn't going to be completely satisfied until Nico was back to normal and trapped—probably complaining even though he didn't mean it—in his arms.

* * *

Three days passed, and Nico got grumpier with every passing minute.

He was stuck doing nothing. He couldn't train since his body had changed so much, he couldn't hang around with the other campers since they all stared or only talked about his change, which made him angrier. He couldn't hang out with Jason because he had had to leave to go to the Roman camp to oversee another temple build—which he had not been happy about—and when Will had suggest that he could take some time off from working in the infirmary to keep him company he had gotten a scathing glare and a _"Don't you dare"_ in return, so Nico just spent his days sulking alone in his cabin.

Toward the end of the fourth day just before dinner they were in Nico's cabin playing Uno—Nico was so competitive that he was nearly cackling with glee over being close to beating Will—when the door rudely burst open and Lou Ellen flew through.

"Got it!" She gasped, grinning at them manically, "We know how to reverse it!"

"Seriously?" Nico asked, jumping off the bed and ruining their card game. Lou Ellen nodded, that slightly scary grin of hers getting worse, and then she reached out and grabbed Nico's wrist. She snapped the fingers of her free hand—Will suspected that was more for showmanship than for the spell itself—then tapped his forehead. They stood like that for a moment and then without a word Lou Ellen pulled away and started to the door.

"Wait, that's it?" Nico asked, obviously fuming, "That didn't do anythi-" And he collapsed where he stood.

"That means it's working." Lou Ellen told a panicking Will from the doorway. "And the reason I did it like this was because I knew he'd have questions and we were working on a kind of limited timeline for various reasons I will not say at this time. So… I'm just going to go. He might be a bit upset with the lack of communication when he wakes up, and I don't really want to deal with that." And she disappeared.

Will loved Lou Ellen. She was one of his best friends. But sometimes, she could be a real ass.

Will managed to get Nico on to his bed and after checking his vitals to make sure Lou Ellen hadn't accidentally _killed _him he went in to the bathroom to grab a glass of water. He walked back in and found Nico still laying in the bed unconscious, clothing loose and everything back to normal.

He hurried back over and checked him over to makes sure everything was fine, and upon discovering that he was he was barely able to contain his joy. Leaning over he smacked a kiss onto that wonderfully familiar mouth, and of course that was when Nico decided to wake up.

"Will? What are you doing?"

"Waking you up with a kiss and breaking the witch's evil spell." Will told him as seriously as he could, trying his best to keep a smile from forming. Nico stared up at him for a blank moment before snorting and pushing Will off.

"So? Did it work?" He asked as he sat up, hurrying to the bathroom to check in the mirror before Will had a moment to answer.

"Yeah, Sleeping Beauty, it did. You know, we really need to talk to Lou Ellen about her bedside manner. She's not really the best with patients."

"That's a bit of an understatement." Nico bit out as he walked over to the dresser, eager to get rid of his borrowed clothes and put on some of his own. "She literally left after I collapsed on the floor."

"At least she's confident in her abilities?" Will weakly pointed out, and earned a brief glare. "Yeah, okay. It was a pretty shit thing to do. It worked, though."

"Yeah, but I'm still not happy. And are you?"

"What, happy with Lou Ellen? Nah man, she left my boyfriend on the floor. That's not something I could really be happy about." Will pointed out with a snort as he stretched out on the bed.

"No." Nico rolled his eyes and made his way back over to the bed, "I meant… Are you happy about me being back to being me?" He hovered by the side of the bed a tad bit uncertainly, and Will smiled up at him, everything inside all warm and fuzzy and so in love he was dumb with it.

"'Course. 'Cus now I can do this." He grabbed Nico's delightfully normal sized wrist and pulled him down, wrapping his arms and legs around the boy before he could think of struggling. He sighed, content, and nuzzled his face close to Nico's.

"I'm not your teddy bear." Nico told him, but his tone was soft and even without looking Will knew that he'd see that familiar quirk of a small smile on his lips.

"Yeah you are. Now be quiet and let me enjoy having this back."

"Idiot." He snorted, but his hands came around and held him back. And everything was as it should be.


End file.
